Wait What.. You’re Taking It Down?

Wait What is a mashup artist that I recently found through the website. www.themusicleak.com who did a full album of mixes between Notorious B.I.G. and a band called The XX. I saw his videos on youtube and loved the mixes that he was making, very simple but still musically stimulating.

As always, I wanted to download the music so that I could have it and even mix it up little when I found time. Upon reaching his website I tried to find the download link that the blog had talked about. The DL link had been closed because the company that owns the rights to Notorious’ music had found out and sent a letter demanding for the music to be taken down.

I understand the fact that they don’t want their copyrighted material to be downloaded freely but at the same time, all of the videos on youtube are still up. Not only this but on his Soundcloud.com account, you can still individually download every track that he’s mashed so far with Notorious. Is it that they just haven’t found out yet that it is still online or do they not care that it is available elsewhere.

After Patti said that her soundtrack had been taken down from her youtube post, it doesn’t make sense why youtube would not take this down as well. Or if not youtube, why the people from the record company would not go after every form that he has his music being shared through. It is just as much of an infringement of the copyright and isn’t parody so I don’t believe that it could be considered as something that falls under the creative commons license. This line is still something that seems to be blurry in our online and media culture.

There are definitely places that copyright infringing work can be hidden online but I wouldn’t expect youtube to be one of them. Is it fair that youtube doesn’t get in trouble for hosting this and not taking it down or is it the responsibility of the uploader to realize their (dead)wrong-doings and take them down? Also, is it likely that certain record companies are much more keen on where their music is being shared and stopping it or is it a matter of someone reporting it to them? I’d like to know how it is that they come across these things that they aren’t alright with and how they go about getting it down. I also would like to see an overhaul to a certain extent to the copyright laws that makes it legal for people to use other work as an inspiration of their own artistic creations without repercussions (wishful thinking but hey… The Sky Is The Limit[Biggie reference!])